Chapter Fifteen
Morning Clarity
Senna went to Greta's bookshop the next morning still turning the previous night over, unable to settle into any of her usual routines, the memory of the kiss sitting in her chest like something combustible.
"I need to tell you everything," she said, once the shop door had closed behind her, and for the first time since the confession, she did: the vigil, the flowers she hadn't received, the conversation about Reinholt, the men at the loading dock, the kiss, Colt's insistence that they slow down rather than let fear decide anything.
Greta listened without interrupting, her expression softening through the telling in a way Senna hadn't expected.
"That man pulled away from a kiss he clearly wanted because he didn't trust the circumstances," she said finally.
"Do you understand how rare that is? Most men would have taken what was offered and sorted the consequences out later. "
"I know." Senna wrapped both hands around the mug of tea Greta had pressed into her hands.
"I keep waiting to feel like this is a mistake.
Like I'm about to repeat something. And I don't feel that.
I feel terrified in a completely different way, like I'm standing at the edge of something real instead of bracing for another fall. "
"Can I say something about your mother again? I know I already said my piece a few weeks back."
Senna nodded, bracing slightly out of old habit.
"I told you she wasn't built for staying.
I don't think I said clearly enough what I meant by that, so let me try again.
" Greta set her own cup down, folding her hands.
"She wasn't a lesson about trust in general.
She was one specific, limited woman who never learned how to be known without running.
You took that single case and turned it into a rule that applied to everyone, including a man who has spent the last month proving, in every way he knows how, that he isn't cut from her cloth.
I think the real question isn't whether trust is safe in general.
It's whether you're brave enough to risk being wrong about one particular man twice, when the first time cost you so much. "
Senna sat with that, feeling something settle into place that had been circling for weeks without ever quite landing.
"I don't actually think transparency is impossible with him anymore," she said slowly, testing the words as she said them.
"I think I've been telling myself that because it was easier than admitting the real fear. "
"Which is?"
"That I'm not brave enough to survive being wrong about him a second time." Saying it out loud cost her something, a small, necessary pain. "If I let him back in and it turns out I was wrong to trust the change, I don't know if there's a version of me that recovers from that twice."
Greta reached across the table and took her hand.
"There is. You're stronger than you're giving yourself credit for.
But I understand why the fear feels bigger than the evidence right now.
That's what fear does. It makes the smallest possible loss feel like the only outcome worth planning for, because planning for loss feels safer than hoping for something you might not get. "
"When did you get so wise about this."
"I've had sixty years and a great many disappointing men to practice on.
" Greta's mouth twitched, the closest thing to a joke she'd offered all morning.
"I never had what you might have with Colt, if you let yourself.
I'd like to see you have it, even though it terrifies me a little too, watching you risk it. "
Senna squeezed her aunt's hand, throat tight, and sat with the quiet of the shop a while longer before she trusted herself to speak again.
? ? ?
Senna called Colt that afternoon, standing in the studio's front room with the phone pressed to her ear, her voice steadier than she expected once she actually began speaking.
"I want to try again," she said, without preamble.
"Not the way we were before. On terms. Full transparency, not omission dressed up as protection.
Time, not urgency. Proof through actions I can actually see, not promises I have to take on faith.
If any of that is more than you're able to give me, I need to know now, honestly, rather than find out later. "
There was a pause on the line, and when Colt spoke his voice carried a quiet certainty she hadn't heard from him since before the confession.
"I agree to every term. Not because I think it's a small ask.
Because I think it's exactly what should have been the foundation from the start, and wasn't, and that's on me. "
"There's something else." Senna's pulse quickened. "I need to know what you actually want, going forward. Not what you think I want to hear."
"I want out of the club. Completely. Not just refusing a promotion or picking fights with Rein when he pushes too far.
Out, formally, with whatever paperwork or consequence that requires.
I've been circling that decision for weeks and I think talking to you just made it real enough to say out loud.
" His voice was steady, resolved. "I don't know exactly what it costs yet.
I know it's the only way I actually become the kind of man worth what you're offering me a chance to be. "
Senna closed her eyes, feeling something in her chest ease for the first time in weeks. "Okay," she said. "Then let's find out together what that costs."
They talked for a while longer after that, logistics rather than feeling: how often he'd come by, what she needed from him in terms of communication when club business ran late, the small, unglamorous architecture of two people trying to build something honest out of the wreckage of something that hadn't been.
It wasn't romantic, exactly, this conversation about terms and expectations conducted over the phone in a mostly empty studio.
But it felt, to Senna, more solid than anything they'd said to each other in the three years before the confession, and she hung up eventually feeling something she hadn't expected to feel again this soon: cautious, fragile hope.